


They say revenge is sweet, but all I taste is sour rage

by BlazingChes



Category: Dishonored (Video Games)
Genre: Aftermath of Torture, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Angst, Blood and Gore, Canon-Typical Violence, Corvo Has A Rough Day, Emotional Manipulation, Father-Daughter Relationship, Gore, Hurt/Comfort, Low Chaos (Dishonored), M/M, Nightmares, POV Second Person, Pay attention to, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, Rage, Self-Harm, Spoilers to the first game, Torture, and, lot of characters are mentioned, more like months, mute corvo, probably, with a hint of High Chaos (Dishonored)
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-11-24
Updated: 2016-11-24
Packaged: 2018-09-01 21:03:23
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 7,959
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8637958
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/BlazingChes/pseuds/BlazingChes
Summary: It's a scene you've seen so many times, in a loop in your head. You see it whenever you close your eyes and whenever you try to get rest (kind rest, or at least it should be kind. Instead it's terribly cruel).Her body laying cold on the floor, blood spraying out, and the words YOU CANNOT SAVE HER written feverishly all over the gazebo's column's and tiles in blood.(In which a tragedy has occurred and the Royal Protector falls to the status of an almost rabid dog.)





	

**Author's Note:**

> Fun fact - this was originally supposed to only be 2000 words long at the max. As you can see, that didn't stick around long. 
> 
> I say Canon Divergence because of two things: 1) there is more time in this fic. There's a few instances during the game where a character will reference an event that you played through but say it was a few weeks ago. So I added those weeks and days in. 2) The second chapter takes off away from Dishonored 2, I believe, since I have only just barely started it two nights ago and just picked Emily. I have no idea how Corvo is or how it ends or the like. (Speaking of which, please refrain talking about that in the comments if you do gift me with one <3)
> 
> Also, what I mean with Low Chaos with a hint of High Chaos is that this has the Low Chaos ending but High Chaos moments. Corvo isn't all right in the head and he wants to and does kill people. So yeah.
> 
> I hope you guys enjoy! Let me know if you see something confusing, I generally wrote this in the past two nights when I was half asleep and then spent today finishing it. I might have missed it when I combed through it quickly, so feel free to giggle or point it out!
> 
> (Quick note, Outsider and Corvo talk in italics because, well, it's all in his head. Same with The Heart)

Sometimes, when they knock you around hard enough in the prison, you get a glimpse of what could have been ( _of what should have been)_ in your dreams ( _nightmares_ ). Emily on your shoulders, Emily getting married, Jessamine laughing with her on the wedding day, Jessamine smoothing out her veil, then later holding a baby you know had to be Emily’s (because what else could be so pure and filled with laughter?)

You then are shown memories, good ones, of sunshine falling in through glass to land on a regal figure, of laughter spilling out of rosy lips and of squeals when the owner is caught and lifted up into the air by your own two hands. You remember the nights of before the tiny princess, where Jessamine would lay beside you after long and stressful days and allow you to rub circles into her back. You remember the days of after the princess, at which you would take the girl’s hand after she offered it and would spin her whenever she asked for it.

That is the only reprieve for you, and it quickly fades away as the nightmares quickly strike and settle back in. The nightmares are constant, for they don’t need the prequel your torture sometimes gives you, and they smother you whenever you close your eyes, because they are memories too. They are memories played on repeat (twice, thrice, soon more than a thousand times) and in vivid color, and each time you are reminded about your failures.

 _(Her voice, high, panicked, screeching out “Corvo!”_  

 _You, standing, forced to watch and unable to move_  

_Emily, sweet Emily, crying out “Mommy!”_

_Her again, pushing Emily out of the way, pleading_

**_Him, slapping her, pushing her against the railing_ **

**_Him, stabbing her in the stomach and letting her fall to the ground_ **

**_Him, by extension, taking Emily away and vanishing, leaving only dust_ **  

 **_Blood on your hands, a dull roar in your head, help her_ **  

 **_Helpherhelpherhelpherhelpherhelpher-_ **  

 _w h y  d i d n ‘ t  y o u  h e l p  h e r ?_  

 **_w h y  d i d  y o u  f a i l  h e r ?_ **  

 _And then -_ **_YOU CANNOT SAVE HER,_ ** _first written in ink and then in her blood, all around the walls and floors and on the columns of the gazebo and on your skin and on your bones.)_  

You recall her death and her final words the most, sometimes a sick parody of it where it’s only her and you and knives twisting about in her lower abdomen and you being unable to stop the source because it’s _gone_ but _not_ , because she’s _bleeding red all over, splat splat splat, and the knives won’t move_. You recall _their_ words, of traitor, of accusations, of _confess so we can get on with our new lives_. It all twists in you, becoming a maelstrom after months of torture and after months of reflection (of self-hatred, of hatred in general, of ragerageragerage), and you spit at them until they take your tongue and until you’re too tired to do it.

 

**~*~*~**

 

They take you apart, sometimes slowly, sometimes terribly fast. They rip off fingernails and toenails, they break bone and rip through muscle, they burn your skin with hot lead and pokers, with torches and with cigars, all because they want you to take the fall for their crime. For their traitorous deeds. They don’t have to be careful, as you have months to recover, and so they can do anything as long as you keep breathing. You snarl at them when the pain overwhelms you, with words that are half-mad but would make your Empress flinch if she wasn’t dead (embedded on the ground, in your memory, blood spurting out, lips releasing words that you can’t bear to hear anymore and yet still do). They take half of your tongue, then, because it doesn’t matter as long as you have your hands, and all you can do is make it difficult for them when they attempt to grab your chin or fasten your head to a table or the floor. 

Your resistance and your torture last the same amount of time, because soon you taste sour freedom, but on the second to last time they dare to stab you they murmur to each other that the torture will have to be improved, because you’re developing a tolerance to what they’re delivering. A voice in your head, somewhere behind the fuzzy voices still screaming and shouting and raging and one that suspiciously sounds like Jessamine, tells you that you should be proud. And maybe you should be. 

But all you can feel anymore are despair, rage, and hatred, and pride is wasted on you when you know you’re nothing more than a pile of shit who failed and killed the woman you loved (because not saving her, being forced to watch her get stabbed, over and over, that’s just as bad as being the one who holds the sword and sprays her blood everywhere).

 

**~*~*~**

 

They tell you that this will be the last time, that this is your last chance to confess to the crime you never committed. They say it doesn’t matter, not really, but it would make the transition smoother. Easier. They burn you over and over, and all you can do is glare and try to hold back your wordless shouts of agony. You see when they truly give up, when annoyance and resignation lines their faces and dulls their eyes, and that’s the only time in several months where you feel a spike of amusement. They see it, too, and they knock you out before you can learn how to laugh without a tongue.

( **YOUCANNOTSAVEHER** ** _helpherhelpherpleasepleaseplease_** ** _movedamnit_** **YOUCANNOT-** )

You wake up to a cryptic message about friends( _what friends did you have? Left? Dead, dead, gone, gone, no one’s left._ ) and something about the food, and it’s the only motivation you have to get off the cot, so you try and struggle to get on your feet. The world spins for a moment, and you almost fall back onto the cot, but you bite on the inside of your cheek, until the sad remainder of a tongue you have tastes iron, and hold steady. The moment passes, and you limp to the moldy bread, half tempted to just ignore it or toss it at the guards when they come and get you, but instead you set it aside for the rats that will undoubtedly sneak in.

The key and note make you pause and your breath catch, and all that fury is spilling out as you open the door and limp out, as you seize the blade. It makes you dizzy again, and you try to breathe, try to think. You find that slaughter is the first thing that comes to mind, the blade sinking into soft flesh and coming out red, and it’s so tempting, but you cannot. You’re weak from torture and from the lack of proper nourishment, cannot head into battle just yet even if you’ve tried to stay inasmuch shape as your tiny cell will allow, and so it has to be last resort.

You sneak past with a few close calls, knuckles white from how hard you grip the blade, and you keep well away from their throats. You ignore your fury all the way out, and all through the sewers, but it’s difficult because it’s screaming in you and the hate in you is trying hard to rationalize unleashing it.

Samuel meets you outside and tells you what has happened while you were in prison. Part of you wants to rip out _his_ tongue as he does it, because he’s listing out all the results of your failure with such a dry tone and because it’s a reminder that what should have been now never can be. The other part of you is using it as an anchor, as fuel, because this is that assassin’s fault and _your_ fault, and you have to at least try to fix it. 

(A part of you thinks that maybe this will give Jessamine some peace. The other part rages that she can’t feel peace, she’s dead dead dead.)

 

**~*~*~**

 

You’re still tense when you reach the pub, even more so when they talk of Emily and how she’s still alive (you thank someone, anyone, and pray that she stays that way until you claw your way to her side) and how you’ll need to get rid of some people to find out where she is, and then to reinstate her on the throne. 

You don’t trust any of them, really, not even Samuel, and you spend that night pacing your room, eyes flitting between the window and the door and the ceiling, because no one ever does anything out of the good of their heart. You count footsteps, count voices, consider slipping out and eavesdropping when a conversation between Havelock and Pendleton passes by your door, but you don’t. You just watch, watch, watch, fingers dancing up and down the blade and occasionally drawing blood. 

When morning comes and you haven’t gotten a wink of sleep, you sneak down into the kitchen and make your own food, porridge, and try not to twitch or throw a knife at Callista and Havelock when they sit at the bar and watch. Instead, you calmly continue to stir, ignore the surprised note in Havelock’s voice when he says, "I never imagined you in the kitchen" _,_ and try not to think about that Emily loved your porridge and that Jessamine had tolerated it if there was a couple of scones on the side.

 

**~*~*~**

 

Other than a handful of surprise encounters and when you make your own food, you do not interact with them at first. You take your food to your room or the roof, finish it quickly, and get your body back into proper shape. You hear their whispers of “He’s going to kill himself,” and “Does he think we’re going to poison him?” and toss it to the back of your mind so that the rage can feast on them. 

You initially do not sleep, either, until the fourth day when you lock the doors and barricade them with chairs and a small cabinet and when you feel like you’re going half insane, and you instantly regret it when the nightmares hit.

**YOU CANNOT SAVE HER YOU CANNOT SAVE HER YOU CANNOT SAVE HER**

You are surprised that they do not last, surprised when the nightmares melt away into this strange place ( _the Void, a voice supplies_ ) and when a floating man with no inflection in his tone says to you, _Dear Corvo. Dear, dear,_ **_dear_ ** _Corvo._ He _burns_ your hand, staining it (with his mark, he says) and calls himself the Outsider. He says he has gifted you with powers to help in the days to come, and you know they have a price. (A voice, perhaps yours if you still had your entire tongue, whispers that it doesn’t matter as long as Emily comes back to you, safe and as _Emily_ , and as long as she gets back onto the throne.) 

You come to _that_ scene while testing Blink, and you pause, because she’s dead, dead, dead, dead, even here, and you cannot save her. The note in her handwriting says so too. **YOU CANNOT SAVE HER YOU CANNOT SAVE HER YOU CANNOT SAVE HER YOU CANNOT SAVE HER YOU CANNOT SAVE HER**. All on the page. There is confusion in the air from something, then a sound of realization, but you don’t notice because there are tears bubbling up at your eyes as you cradle her stone cold face one last time and move on, promising that revenge will come from your hands like a scorned demon. (Emily’s note only cements this, and _her_ voice coming from the heart the Outsider gives you makes you choke and wordlessly snarl, even if you cradle it reverently and keep it in your breast pocket.) 

The Outsider calls you fascinating, says that he will be watching, when you reach him for the third time, and you don’t miss the way his black eyes settle on your breast pocket and flit to your grim expression. And when he sends you away and you wake, you can hear another whisper of _fascinating_ in your ears. 

The mark is still on your left hand when you look, dark until you test it and then it lights up and burns all over again. That is a burn you could learn to not mind, you think, when you rise from your bed with old and new strength settling in your body. (You wonder if that strength, too, is a gift.)

 

**~*~*~**

 

They give you a skull mask and new equipment and their words are serious and wary in equal measure. They do not know what you will do, you realize, because they expected a massacre in the prison but all you gave them was a broken man who can no longer properly speak. Callista asks, no, _pleads_ you to save an uncle of hers from a murderous plot, and she too sounds wary. You wonder if she thinks you’ll kill him yourself. (But he’s innocent, the heart whispers to you when you find him, but you already know that. He was with you. _With you._ The heart whispers again that he killed to keep his love a secret, his preferences a secret, and you wonder if he’ll keep your help a secret by killing more, too.) 

But you save him. You save him and you set him in a dumpster. You even save Martin, too. Campbell is the only one you kill, even if you want to slaughter them all. (Campbell is the goal, _the goal_ , it’s okay if you kill him, but any others are pointless. _Pointless, pointless, pointless._ ) You stab Campbell, though, over and over and over and over, even though he’s already dead, because something in you goes mad with the thought of anything less. You spill his guts, you tear through muscle, and you almost wish you hadn’t killed him before it all, you almost wish he was wide awake and aware, just like _you_ were when you were being tortured. But logic states that if he had been alive, he’d be screeching, alerting everyone. It is easier for him to be dead. 

When you hear footsteps coming towards the door, you leave him on the chair in the interrogation room, heretic mark branded onto his face, staining it with blood and leaving a lake on the floor, and you leave by running atop the ledges and rooftops. It turns out you could have stayed longer, and your rage purrs at you to go back. Maybe behead him and leave it on his desk. Maybe take his entrails and smear it on every step of every staircase in the building. But you don’t, even if your rage hisses in return. 

You return to Samuel with bloody hands and only half-listen to him. When you step on the boat and you both are sailing away, you look down on your hands and try to find the slightest bit of remorse or relief. To find the slightest give in the storm of hate and rage that you’ve built up since the Empress was gutted in front of you and Emily was taken away. 

There is none. There’s only more of it and more temptation now that you’ve had a taste.

 

**~*~*~**

 

They all congratulate you. Callista even calls you a good man. But their eyes never drift below your exposed face, and they especially stay away from your hands and blade. The heart tells you of their secrets because they put you on edge, and Havelock’s audios and notes only make you tense. You do not join them in celebration, and you especially do not join them in cracking the code in Campbell’s journal. Instead, you nod your head at Samuel and Callista and retreat to your room. 

On your bed you lay out all of the runes and bone charms you found while out, wondering why her heart and your heart are beating fast just at the sight of them. Your hand brushes against them, slowly, and your fingers trace the symbols on the runes. The heart speaks of whale bones and magic, and maybe that’s why both hearts seem to be excited. 

You learn, later, holding the runes to your mark make them vanish and strengthen your abilities. Sometimes you gain new powers. You aren’t sure how you feel about that, yet, but are still grateful for having them, and the knowledge of strength soothes some your paranoia and worry. You still pace the floors of your room that night, and still barricade the door at night, but you at the very least retire earlier than before 

The night, though, is still filled with unpleasant nightmares, and you half-wonder if it will always be this way. Reaching out, trying to push past what you know now to be magic, watching, always watching, always failing. There’s always too much blood and always too much yelling and you _can’t stop any of it-_  

You throw the blade always at your side at the opposite wall, with enough vigor that you wonder if your subconscious thinks that enough of it will make it go back in time. Make _you_ go back in time. But that’s a pointless notion, too.

 

**~*~*~**

 

It takes a few days, during which you spend memorizing every stone and every shadow in the area and occasionally sitting with Samuel as he drinks or with Callista as she draws out plans (lesson plans, you learn, for Emily), but you are finally told that they have cracked the code to Campbell’s journal. That morning, there are lessons of weepers and new knowledge that nearly makes you go insane (more than they say you already have). Your hand is clenched around your blade’s handle behind you, hard and tight and practically shaking in anticipation. Your thoughts are a collection of _Emily, Emily, Emily, Emily_ and _Be safe, be safe, be safe, be safe_. 

If Samuel notices your tense manner during the trip to the Golden Cat, he says nothing. Inwardly, you thank him, because you don’t know what you will do once someone brings it up, or when you finally look upon it. The memory of the scene in the void, one you are careful to isolate from any others for the moment out of fear of rampage in such proximity to perhaps the only man in the Loyalist company that you trust, does not assure you. Morgan and Custis Pendleton, as Treavor tells you with a hint of scorn and a hint of pride you are sure he does not hear or realize, did not look kind or patient. Rather, they look the opposite; mean with a side of a temper that had no leash. 

Your rage is much like that, this time, begging to be let loose so you can wipe out everyone who stands in your way, so that you can hold Emily in your arms ( **YOU CANNOT SAVE HER,** it is said, but maybe you can save Emily). You do not kill anybody at the Golden Cat, not even the Pendleton twins or the Madame, but instead leave that to Slackjaw who holds the code to his heart. You only kill once that day, as you’re making your way past Clavering Boulevard, because someone made a biting retort that the Empress had been a too trusting cow and that her death was the cause of all of this (the plague, the corruption, the pain, he shouts at his companion, it’s all her fault). It’s a comment that shouldn’t matter, but it did, and it makes you snap and cut out his tongue before leaving him trapped in a blocked off room on the fifth floor of a building you blink to. 

You do not kill anyone around Emily. You do not leave chaos in the Golden Cat. All you do is strangle people until they fall asleep and then you hide them, because you _will not take any chances here_ . It’s a tough call though, especially when you go to Mr Bunting’s room and feel a swell of rage and panic and the memories of being a torture chair threaten to swallow you whole and choke you. You have to blink away, again and again and again, until you’re outside and away from remaining ears, so you can breathe. ( _Breathe breathe breathe, you aren’t there anymore, not anymore, breathe damn you, breathe breathe breathe._ ) You breathe fast, then, too fast, and you’re hyperventilating (over a damned chair no less). Your blade makes contact with the palm of your marked hand then, makes you gasp and falter before properly breathing. Blood runs down the blade in rivulets and down your arm and you snarl at yourself. _Get over it, get over it, this is not prison, not even the proper chair._ You breathe, slowly and properly, just a little bit more before taking a bandage Piero had set with the Sokolov Elixirs and wrapping it so that the mark remains unconcealed but the rest is covered. 

You return to the Golden Cat and you do what is needed. And, when you find Emily ( _E_ _mily Emily Emily Emily_ ), and when she beams at you and charges at you, you spin her around and around and hold her close. You send her out, with careful prodding, and you return to Slackjaw with that damned code. 

The Pendletons, they say to you, will be taken care of that night. 

You hardly hear them over the roaring relief in your head.

 

**~*~*~**

 

You return with Emily and you can’t keep your eyes off of her or stay too far away. You’re almost tempted to throw your blade at Havelock when he says that you must leave immediately for another mission, but you restrain yourself since Emily is watching and because the mission holds weight. Anton Sokolov, they say, knows the true identity of the Lord Regent’s (the title is curious, because they so insist on conspiring against him but still can’t bring themselves to say the actual name) mistress, who is also his financial support, and you know removing that would bring Emily one step closer to the throne. So you go, sneaking past guards and Walls of Light and Arc Pylons, you sneak past weepers and release people trapped by the city guards, take runes and bone charms and listen to the Outsider’s words. 

 _(You’re so wonderfully unpredictable, my dear Corvo,_ He says to you, again with no inflection, but you think you can hear amusement somewhere in his words all the same. _Killing one, then not killing two, but still killing a random fool. Do you think you can keep yourself from killing tonight?)_  

You don’t kill, you don’t, because Emily is back home and no one speaks of Jessamine. You take Sokolov from his lab and free a pitiful fool who doesn’t know she’s going to die, and you return to Samuel. You don’t bother wasting time, not when Emily is safe. _Safe, safe, safe, thank you for keeping her safe_. 

You return home, settle Sokolov inside the “jail” as requested, and you blink to Emily’s quarters. She’s asleep by then, of course, and plagued by nightmares that make you want to tear everyone apart, but the sight of her still soothes a beastly part of you (one that had nothing left to lose, one that hadn’t known whether she would be safe or even alive, one that had already lost so damn much and was now scared to lose more). Callista grasps your fondness, understands it somehow, even when nobody shouldn’t. (Though, you’ve always been attached, always fond and soft towards her, and many have said that you are far too fond for your station. But they do not know, even if there are rumors about you and Jessamine, and perhaps they’d understand more if they did, if they realized that she’s always been more than the daughter of the Empress, of the daughter of the one you serve and protect.) She says, "Her nightmares aren’t as bad when you’re around." 

You brush the hair out of her face as she cries for her mother, try not to fly into a rage when she whimpers out your name and asks where you are, and you gently hold her hand even as she tries her best to crush it with the tightest grip she can make. You sit next to her until her sleep is only slightly fitful and when Callista says she needs to rest (you ignore her suggestion of that you should too). Even then, however, you truly do not leave, and you don’t think you can. You do not retire, you do not leave, you just walk and watch around the tower walls, blade resting at your side and Dark Vision always being set off, and you count the stones and the stars and the amount of times you hear Emily cry for her mother (by the time the sun rises, that number is twenty seven and a half, the half for the time where she tried to cry it out, only to sob instead).

 

**~*~*~**

 

It takes two weeks for Havelock to crumble and ask for your assistance with Sokolov. In those two weeks, you spend the days with Emily, either close by when she wants to play or wants comfort or from afar when she needs to study and learn, and you spend the nights at the tower, either inside and comforting or outside and patrolling. 

Emily always wants to play some type of game, like hide n’ seek and tag, or watch you carve and draw with a knife you had taken from the kitchen. There would be more, of course, if she and you were back at the old tower, and there would be more if you could talk (her face had _crumbled_ when she realized you were now mute, and you had thought she would start wailing immediately; she held it in, though, and now it’s just one more thing she has nightmares about), but you both make do. You can no longer read her stories, but you can write them out while she draws, ones of adventure and ones of humor. Ones of witches and pirates, and one with a giant squid. They aren’t particularly good, really, and they make Callista’s face scrunch up when she reads them, but they make Emily giggle and smile, so you continue with them. 

After she finishes her lessons, she always goes to find you. She complains about them mostly, but from time to time she’ll ask you to quiz her, or even brag that she has memorized a particularly difficult portion of history. She holds on tight to your legs or your hands and arms, and you don’t shrug her off; rather, you offer to carry her around or give her a piggy back ride, and it is rare if she says no. This happens at night, too, during the first couple when you don’t sleep; when she wakes up and is too scared to fall back asleep, and when she is too afraid to let you go even if she’s cold. She always falls into a fitful slumber by the end of the hour, because she always brings a blanket and you always wrap her in it so she doesn’t fall ill. And, when you finally retreat to your room, she always wakes you up when she tries to sneak in. 

The problem with that is you immediately tense up, and your marked hand always comes up to bend time around you so that you can delay, delay, delay, and so you always have to step back and turn it off immediately when you see it’s Emily before you shoot her with your pistol or crossbow. The Outsider mocks you for this, among other things, in the rare times he summons you to the Void. 

( _Dear Corvo, if you aren’t careful, you really_ **_will_ ** _kill an empress this time._ ) 

If he comes at all, he always comes when the nightmares hit, just when you start inwardly screaming, and he always fixes his black gaze on your expression. _What will you do,_ he asks, _when Hiram Burrows is before you? What will you do when the assassin who killed your beautiful Empress is in arm’s reach? What will you do when you are given the opportunity to make Hiram Burrows feel the same pain you_ **_still_ ** _feel?_  

It’s difficult to tell, but you think he is delighted by your snarls, by the swelling rage that arises at the name of the new Lord Regent and the way it makes your mind go rabid. You know he’s definitely amused for when you learn that, in this void, the lack of a tongue does not matter. Your hoarse voice, cracked and weak, always asks how and why, but he never gives a proper answer, instead spouting out cryptic nonsense and calling you _Dear Corvo_ , again and again. You also learn that he can’t be hurt, not by mortal means anyway, when he suddenly cradles your face and you recoil and lash out with panic, punching him across the face and drawing back, expecting to see at least a mark but only seeing unmarred skin. _You’re so delightfully unpredictable_ , he says to you, always, again and again, just before sending you away. 

He touches you more, just to see how you react, from brushes against hands to twirling his fingers in your hair, and you feel it throughout the day, cold and yet burning. At some point, you back away from him completely, a futile effort, because it’s driving you crazier and crazier. It amuses him, you can see that in the crinkling of his eyes, but he backs off from the otherwise futile effort.

Once, he takes you away from a nightmare and into another one. The same scene, blood escaping and floating in the air, blade easily settled into her lower abdomen, a man with a red coat, red red red _red._ The Heart is whispering rapidly, the Outsider is watching, but all you care about is the written letters, in _her_ writing (because how could you forget it? You’ve watched her write and sign and note for so many years) and in what you know to be _her_ blood, all over the gazebo. 

**CORVO CORVO CORVO EMILY PROTECT HER PROTECT HER IT’S ALL COMING APART**

Your hands are shaking, your right raking down the mark on your left, and you turn to the Outsider and snarl at him. _Stop this._ _I know I failed her, so stop this._ He strolls closer to you, floating once in arms reach, and he asks with a soft voice you know only carries the threat of death (death death death, your eyes keep scanning, scanning, scanning, memorizing that face, memorizing this scene more than you already have), _Why do you think you keep seeing this, dear Corvo?_  

 _Punishment. Reminder. Deserve it._ Is all that comes out, breath leaving you fast as you turn again and try to breathe slower. The Outsider’s arm wraps around your neck and pulls you back into him as you breathlessly growl and struggle, but you freeze when his voice croons into your ear. _So interesting, my dear Corvo. Do hope that you stay that way._ And then he and the void are gone, and you’re dropping into the nightmares all over again. 

You drown in them, over and over and over, and he lets you.

 

**~*~*~**

 

You help Havelock with Sokolov one day and obtain all the answers you need. A party, masquerade and a Lady Boyle, one of three. You set off in the night with Samuel steering, as always, and with him muttering about the aristocracy and their terrible nature, and you leave with haste the second he stops the boat, blinking across the river and onto solid ground, eyes flitting between every threat and every path. The tallboy is something you remember from your first trip to the void, and you avoid it like everyone tries to with the plague. Eventually, his existence becomes so troublesome, and thus you take him out by stabbing him as you fall and land on him. 

The party makes you tense when you arrive, all loud noise and fake laughter, but it brings you pleasure to sign your name and to go up to the bedrooms, at which you search for clues of which Lady Boyle to kill (because you are going to, you _will_ , either all three in a fit or just the one). You find Hiram Burrow’s note in Esma’s room, which says that she will be in white. After that, it’s a matter of finding her and leading her away, or more precisely her leading you, and you stab her in the chest, the stomach, the heart, and you make it _messy_. You enjoy wiping your blade on the sheets that she laid on in a provocative position, and you enjoy digging up her heart and setting it on the note. 

Dramatic, yes. Chaotic, yes. But your rage is delighted, because if Hiram Burrows actually cared for her, which is unlikely but still satisfying to think about, then he will be distraught. Either way, panic will brew, and so your work is finished. 

(You try to deny to yourself that it’s so tempting to take the other two up to Esma’s room and tear them apart, piece by piece, to set all three hearts next to each other and write _Do you know which one is **hers**? _ in their blood on the walls or the notes. It doesn’t work, not really, but at the very least you don’t act on it.)

 

**~*~*~**

 

The next days are spent with you restlessly pacing the grounds, watching over Emily or nodding at Martin, whose eyes look down at the mark on your hand frequently and who tries to pretend he is not unnerved by you. When you receive the order to move onto the Lord Regent (the Lord Regent, Lord Regent, _Lord Regent,_ you inwardly snarl, he is no _Lord Regent_ , only a _rat_ ), you blink to the boat and get moving. 

The tower has been decorated with extensive technology and is filled to the brim with guards. You don’t kill any of them, saving all of that fury for Burrows when you see him. You stop by the gazebo, first however, and then Jessamine’s secret room, because the gazebo was where it all started and you wanted to see if you could bring anything back to Emily (for _comfort_ , for _closure_ ). You instead find a stone inscribed with Jessamine’s name and an audiograph that makes you dizzy. That’s when you learn that you can’t kill Hiram, cannot, even if your rage is once again screeching at you. So instead you find his room, at which he is sitting at his desk with as much peace as he’ll ever have at this time (so not very much), and find the safe, in which you find an audiograph and a note (a note with a name, _Daud, Daud Daud Daud_ ). You find the propaganda officer, who pleads to you to let him live, so you do. (The Empress would have liked his devotion to his family, the Heart whispers, for staying there so long just because his family was threatened.) 

The audiograph plays, and you want to kill Hiram over and over and over for what it says, and you almost do. You march towards his room when you hear talk of the torturer, and that’s when you stiffen, that’s when your rage and panic and hate boils over. You forget completely about Hiram, just for a moment, and you follow the maid to the torturer room. When you reach it, you fly into a rage, silent but furious, and you stab the torturer’s throat before he even notices that you’re there. The hound barks, though, so you slit its belly, and the maid screams, so you slit her throat. Food and blood are spread all over, and all you can think of is burning metal, iron pincers, _blade at your tongue_ , whips, icy and boiling water. The shrine in his room is laughing, and the Outsider is holding you close and calling you remarkable and thanking you for the chaos, but all you can see and feel are chains around your wrist and _fire and pain and -_  

Your mask is slightly unfastened, just enough to slip it upward and uncover the lower part of your face, and you breathlessly snarl and bite the fingers that brush against your mouth right after. They become nothing, though, and blood leaks from your lips instead. Fingers slide up to brush against your lips again, and when you don’t bite a second time, they are replaced with cool lips that make you writhe all over again. It takes a whispered, _Corvo_ , for you to go still, and when lips press against yours for a second time, your mind goes blank and your rage (no, madness, madness is the right word for this, madness madness _madness_ _)_  purrs.

 

**~*~*~**

 

They betray you when you settle in and they betray you when you sit next to dear Emily. They betray you by lying, lying about promises and lying about helping you find the one who killed Jessamine. But you don’t see that until it’s too late, until Emily has gone to bed after you’ve spun her around and around and until you’re downing a drink they’ve laced with poison in celebration. And it hurts, really, but you should have known better. 

Nothing, after all, is done out of the goodness of somebody’s heart.

 

**~*~*~**

 

Samuel is the one who sends you down the river, you realize through your pounding head and blurry vision, but the ones who find you are the men with gas masks. Your eyes burn more, then, and you writhe when you come to again, this time in a box, and in front of the man you would never forget, even if you obtained amnesia. _Daud, Daud the note had said, Daud was the one who killed her, who did the dirty work._ His red coat is the same as your memory dictates, as is his worn face. He’s speaking, and he throws your weapons, but you can’t register any words. You have no hope to leashing your rage, because it’s a rabid dog now in the face of the assassin, and when he knocks you out again, the familiar roar of **YOU CANNOT SAVE HER** is louder than ever and comes with you into reality. 

You escape, and you find your weapons, but then it goes all downhill from there. You do not spare anyone who gets in your way, and every time your blade is shoved into someone’s chest or face, all you can hear is the shouting from that day. _CORVO, CORVO!_ She shrieks in your head as you make blood spray. _Y **OU CANNOT SAVE HER** _ is ringing through your ears as you behead some, blind others, slice some throats, break others’ bones. There’s shouting, you realize in the middle of it all, terrified shouting, but all you can feel is ice cold killing rage, and all you’re seeing is red coming from the Empress you failed. 

**YOU CANNOT SAVE HER YOU CANNOT SAVE HER YOU CANNOT SAVE HER YOU CANNOT SAVE HER YOU CANNOT SAVE HER YOU CANNOT SAVE HER YOU CANNOT SAVE HER YOU CANNOT SAVE HER YOU CANNOT SAVE HER YOU CANNOT SAVE HER YOU CANNOT SAVE HER YOU CANNOT SAVE HER YOU CANNOT SAVE HER YOU CANNOT SAVE HER YOU CANNOT SAVE HER YOU CANNOT SAVE HER YOU CANNOT SAVE HER YOU CANNOT SAVE HER YOU CANNOT SAVE YOU CANNOT SAVE HER -**

Each word with a slice, each loop with bodies around, and you cannot find yourself wishing that anything was different. The buzzing in your ears does not quiet, even after the Outsider fixes his black eyes on you and even after he cradles your face. You do not care, you’re far too busy looking at a scene that’s already gone past and that has already decayed. 

The buzzing increases when only Daud remains, Daud who expects you and draws his blade. You both fight, both with desperation, but yours is tainted by rabid rage and madness while his is edged with regret. Your masked face looks down at him in the end, when you strike his leg and send him to the floor and after you break his crossbow. At first, this is all you want to do. This is not because of any kindness, or mercy, but the opposite. You want him to feel what you feel, you want him to feel the pain that plagues you every day and the memory of not being able to do enough. You know his assassins are precious to him, or as precious as anything might be to a stone-cold assassin, and you think that would be the perfect revenge. The Heart, though, says _The last thing the...Empress felt was his blade,_ and _Why have you brought me here? Am I meant to forgive this man for what he did?!_  

Daud looks up at that, and you cut off his arm, the one marked with the Outsider’s mark, out of fury, because **YOU CANNOT SAVE HER** and because **CORVO!** and because **y o u  f a i l e d  h e r.**  

You leave him behind, go forward and towards the Pub, not caring if the buzzing is overwhelming or if he bleeds out anymore.

 

**~*~*~**

 

There is utter chaos at the Pub, and it is filled to the brim with guards wandering to find you and the remaining survivors. Cecilia lives, Callista lives, Piero lives, Sokolov lives. The rest do or will not. 

You knock out the guards instead of turning them into ash because the blood on you is still there and Emily will no doubt want to return. You cannot let her return to ashes.

 

**~*~*~**

 

Samuel gives you a ride one last time, and he wishes you luck, but as always you’re already up and away, towards guards that have no idea that they’re with a beast trying to leash itself. You decide, in the end, to release that leash, just a bit. 

Those that try to hinder you, who stay in your path for longer than a minute, they end up dead in a corner. You don’t intend to forgive, not at all, and your fury is perfectly content with what you plan on doing.

Only, when you arrive at the top, it is only Havelock and the corpses of Pendleton and Martin, and now your fury is growling, because you wanted to tear them apart and throw them over. You blink to land in front of Havelock, who does not seem surprised at all, just resigned and still stupidly content and _proud_. (If you could still speak, you would hiss at him, tell him all he is proud over is betrayal and hatred and setting off a beast. But you cannot, you cannot, so all you do is let him stare at a skull just like the many dead below had.) 

He tells you to do what you wish to him, but to realize Emily will be watching. You hear her now, trapped in a closet, calling out to Havelock to let her out, _let her out_. And he is true. She will watch. But she still is only a child, even after all of this, so you do the alternative your fury allows: you blink behind him, strangle him, and drop him from the balcony and onto the harsh ground below, just before the sea. You do the same with Martin and Pendleton, and you can hear alarms and the like, but all you care about is the child rushing out of the door you open, about catching her and holding her close and promising to yourself that you’ll never let her go again.

 

**~*~*~**

 

 

Guards will charge through the door, to face your crossbow and blade, to face your skull face, but they will not shoot or charge anymore because Emily, sweet and darling Emily, tells them that Martin, Pendleton, and Havelock betrayed her, and her Royal Protector was simply protecting her from their wrath. 

There are protests, and you knock some of them out with sleep darts, but eventually they stall and listen, and they allow you to pick her up and take her all the way back to Dunwall Tower. 

She falters there, after the fanfare of seeing the rightful heir of the throne has died down, and she grasps your arms and hold on tight, makes you promise to never leave again. Of course you promise, and of course you pick her up from the ground and settle her in her room, and of course you run your hands (clean, now, you made sure of it, blood and ash and pain cannot touch her, not sweet and wonderful Emily) through the strands of her hair and brush them away from her face. 

She falls asleep, fitfully, just like the days of the Pub. 

You do not, and will not for many days, not until you have gone through every nook and cranny of the redecorated tower, not until you go through every single guard stationed in it, not until you find another room for the new Empress to stay in because like hell will she stay in the same room as a traitor. You do not sleep until you have guarded the door to her room because you are not satisfied yet with any of the guards. You do not sleep until Emily, with back straightened and voice already adopting that no-nonsense lilt that her mother had when giving orders or suggestions, tells you to and tells you that there will be twelve guards stationed at her door and at the stairs. You still do not trust, but she tells you that you promised her not to leave, and that she did the same. 

You cannot argue, because while promises will not always mean everything, you want to prolong the days that they do because she is a child and should not have to worry about trust (and yet she already does, the Heart tells you, and is only certain about yours). You falter, then, just like she did, because you are tired and stressed and paranoid, but she looks sure, and the guards look at you and nod. _Promise me you will call for me at the slightest trouble_ , you write on the note before her, and she nods, and you retreat to the room next to her bedroom. 

It takes a few seconds before you melt into sleep and when you do, the Outsider is there, floating before you, amusement in his eyes because he already knows the answer to the question he asks. _Dear Corvo, won’t you rest? Is all your fury gone, do you feel_ **_satisfied_** _, as if the blood on your hands is enough?_  

He rests his hands on your face as you look past him at the gazebo, at Jessamine and the writing that has once again become **YOU CANNOT SAVE HER** , and you say with your hoarse and tired voice, _No, it’s still there._

That fury is still screaming, screeching for blood, and it doesn’t ever quiet, not even when the Outsider presses his lips against yours and when Emily looks at you the next morning, bags underneath her eyes, and smiles.

**Author's Note:**

> *whistles* I am mean and I love it.
> 
> Any feedback is appreciated and I would love any comments or kudos <3
> 
> Edit 09/16: updated summary, halfway through second chapter, hooray for slowness


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